


beady little crow eyes

by kantan



Category: Gintama
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, no explicit spoilers for those who already know who the characters are, utsuro's characterization was based off his words in his final fight with gintoki though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 09:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14668353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kantan/pseuds/kantan
Summary: Utsuro wonders what Oboro sees when he looks at him and, of course, when he is not looking at him too.





	beady little crow eyes

                    Normally, Oboro keeps his eyes closed through out it all, moving only as needed and when he is requested. Occasionally, when he opens them, he sees the darkened room, lit up solely by the now dimming candles he had set up himself earlier during the day. They makes the shadows of his body—and Utsuro’s too—fan across the walls, and they grow menancing with how languidly Utsuro moves, as if the weight of his self-confidence lays heavy and imposed upon him.

                    At some point, on some arbitrary day and perhaps only on a whim, Oboro opens his eyes so that he may see what Utsuro looks like when he is above him. He had always tried to imagine it, even though all he ever seemed to look at during these nights were the back of his eyelids. He had imagined that Utsuro would have his eyes open, because the idea struck him as distinctly unnatural, and he was right, to start. He had also imagined that looking up at the face of his former teacher would disturb him, especially if he were to do so as Utsuro kissed him, or his cheeks. Oboro looks right up at him now, but he does not see Shouyo; somehow, he knows it is not him, even with Utsuro’s hair down and the red in his eyes dulled by the lack of light. He must have made some sort of face, for Utsuro pauses then, smiles his usual smile.

                    “Who were you looking for?” Utsuro asks this with a splash of amusement across his tone.

                    Oboro says nothing, closes his eyes again to invite him to continue, but the other does not relent.

                    “Did you find Shouyo? Or did you lose him when you tried to find him beyond your closed eyes?”

                    “I found you,” Oboro replies, feeling it forced out of him as he opened his eyes once more. Utsuro was still smiling above him, his palm flat against a scar on his chest. Before, it had been a warm and inviting hand, but now the pressure felt a threatening one, hovering right above the chance of a sudden action, spurred on as if it were a horse, by a miss Oboro _could_ make.

                    “You must be dissapointed,” Utsuro starts before pausing, leaving Oboro restless and unsure where exactly to lay his eyes.

                    “I always wonder who it is you are looking at when your eyes are closed, Oboro.” It smells like a strange confession and the brief admittance drives Oboro to reciprocate, perhaps not so much out of sincerity as much as neccessity. It would pain him not to respond as earnestly, pain him like a duty unfulfilled.

                    “I do not search for him. I am more terrified of finding him,” Oboro lets this slip out of his lips alongside a hesitant exhale of the breath he was holding in. It was not as if Utsuro was pushing down upon his lungs with the palm that remained stationed over his chest—he very well could, if he desired—but it felt like he was doing so all the same. With it, he had extracted both breath and the answer he had, all in all, asked politely for.

                    “Does that fear sometimes arise, justified?” Utsuro asks this with a toothless grin sliding across his ever youthful face.

                    Oboro realizes then that their hopes here are misaligned, firing off in opposite directions but bumping into each other over this commonality of Shouyo which, in fact, was the crux of the matter. Oboro wishes desperately not to think of his mentor in moments like these for more than one reason. For one, Oboro is keen on upholding a loyalty that, while he recognizes may not align with Utsuro’s own conception of it, requires him to be aware always that this very palm, curled over his right collarbone, is Utsuro’s and not a softer counterpart. Moreover, it is because Oboro believes that Utsuro would not allow Shouyo any more triumphs, even if they occur only through the borrowed power of hallucinations and illusions. This is true, but he has also made a miss. He misses, significantly, the potential that Utsuro would take the loss for an even greater victory.

                    It is ultimately a shame, in Utsuro’s mind, that Shouyo appears not in flashes, like unwelcome frames thrown haphazardly into a tampered old movie film. It derives him of a certain enjoyment in taking Oboro under him as his own, as both subordinate and something else in particular. (As one would expect, Utsuro is no stickler for human names placed on human relations.) Regardless, Utsuro is hoping that Shouyo would find this distressing. The man is no longer here to admit to it, but it does not deter Utsuro from trying. At the very least, it is most certainly true that he realizes some pleasure from imagining or evoking this potential unhappiness.

                    This is because, in the end, Utsuro is a petty creature. Oboro would never label him so, but it still leaves him at a loss as to what to say. The question lingers, almost ready to dissipate as Utsuro chooses to continue moving and Oboro leaves his eyes half-closed at the renewed momentum, drooping either from fatigue or a ready return to an easier emptiness.

                    “Well?”

                    Because Utsuro is a petty creature, he never relents. Oboro’s eyes fly open again. With the push of suddenness, he finds the will to reconcile himself to Utsuro, to his pernincously defined loyalty.

                    “Yes, sometimes, it arises,” he breathes out quietly.

                    While his words come out quick, Oboro looks more slowly after to find Utsuro’s face. He wants to see it as Utsuro gives him an answer, praise maybe, to the tribute he has offered, but he wonders all the same if it may be the opposite. Utsuro moves his hand from collarbone to cheek, cups his face and runs his thumb over the scar that, in turn, runs across Oboro’s face.

                    “Even with my blood, Oboro, you are weak sometimes, isn’t that so?”

                    Utsuro is a petty creature, and sometimes it is better to give him what he professes to want. In exchange, Oboro receives one more realization, coming off the sight of Utsuro’s underlying fear, which appears now to run beneath his words like a river, markedly cutting right through his heavy confidence.

 

\---

 

                    Oboro knows now, knows he ought to let his eyes roam in between his retreats behind his eyelids. That is why, on the New Year, he is able to see the bowl of chestnuts he had bought from a street vendor. He can smell them faintly, more so than when he is standing, flat on the floor with Utsuro over him, offering him shade greater than any tree could.

**Author's Note:**

> Utsuro's motives had always sort of confused me; why destroy Earth, or even the universe, if the option to follow in Kouka's footsteps and leave Earth to eventually die somewhere else as his body's Altana runs out wasn't ruled out (as far as I could tell)? Having finally seen Utsuro's fate after some furious catching up to the manga though, it had seemed instead that maybe the fear of humans Utsuro discusses for a bit might be at the core of his motives, bound up still, of course, in his desire to finally die. So taking that, remembering poor Oboro's end, and then running with it, this happened. Hopefully it's of some interest, even if it is rather convoluted!


End file.
